“Have I at least convinced you, sire?”
placing his hand upon that of the young king.

“Perfectly.”

“If there be anything else, ask it, sire; I
shall most happy to grant it to you, having refused
this.”

“Anything else, my lord?”

“Why yes; am I not devoted body and soul to
your majesty? Hola! Bernouin! — lights
and guards for his majesty! His majesty is returning
to his own chamber.”

“Not yet, monsieur: since you place your
good-will at my disposal, I will take advantage of
it.”

“For yourself, sire?” asked the cardinal,
hoping that his niece was at length about to be named.

“No, monsieur, not for myself,” replied
Louis, “but still for my brother Charles.”

The brow of Mazarin again became clouded, and he grumbled
a few words that the king could not catch.

Chapter XI:
Mazarin’s Policy.

Instead of the hesitation with which he had accosted
the cardinal a quarter of an hour before, there might
be read in the eyes of the young king that will against
which a struggle might be maintained, and which might
be crushed by its own impotence, but which, at least,
would preserve, like a wound in the depth of the heart,
the remembrance of its defeat.

“This time, my lord cardinal, we have to deal
with something more easily found than a million.”

“Do you think so, sire?” said Mazarin,
looking at the king with that penetrating eye which
was accustomed to read to the bottom of hearts.

“Yes, I think so; and when you know the object
of my request — "

“And do you think I do not know it, sire?”

“You know what remains for me to say to you?”

“Listen, sire; these are King Charles’s
own words — "

“Oh, impossible!”

“Listen. ‘And if that miserly, beggarly
Italian,’ said he — "

“My lord cardinal!”

“That is the sense, if not the words.
Eh! Good heavens! I wish him no ill on
that account; one is biased by his passions.
He said to you: ’If that vile Italian refuses
the million we ask of him, sire, — if we are
forced, for want of money, to renounce diplomacy, well,
then, we will ask him to grant us five hundred gentlemen.’”

The king started, for the cardinal was only mistaken
in the number.

“Is not that it, sire?” cried the minister,
with a triumphant accent. “And then he
added some fine words: he said, ’I have
friends on the other side of the channel, and these
friends only want a leader and a banner. When
they see me, when they behold the banner of France,
they will rally around me, for they will comprehend
that I have your support. The colors of the
French uniform will be worth as much to me as the million
M. de Mazarin refuses us,’ — for he was
pretty well assured I should refuse him that million.
— ’I shall conquer with these five hundred
gentlemen, sire, and all the honor will be yours.’
Now, that is what he said, or to that purpose, was
it not? — turning those plain words into brilliant
metaphors and pompous images, for they are fine talkers
in that family! The father talked even on the
scaffold.”